Circle of Desire (Damask Circle 3)

“Damn it, woman, there’s something dead up there!”

Her gaze met his, her eyes wide and haunted. “Believe me, I know.”

She began to climb. He shook his head and stayed beside her. The smell was worse on the second-floor landing—sharper, fresher, and ripened by the aroma of urine and excrement. He tried breathing through his mouth, but there was no avoiding the foulness of the place. She swung left and he followed. Moonlight filtered in through the broken windows, highlighting the bottles and syringes and piles of shit lining the base of the walls. If this warehouse was some kind of refuge, where the hell were the dregs of humanity who lived in it?

When they entered the small room at the end of the hall, they found the kid. Not that anyone would have guessed the half-chewed fragments strewn over the floor had ever been a child. There was enough, however, for him to realize it was a boy, not a girl. The surge of relief was intense, but it was swiftly replaced by fury. No one deserved this sort of death, let alone an innocent little kid. His stomach rose, and it took every ounce of willpower not to lose it then and there.

There was bad, and then there was bad. But this was worse than either of those.

Kat made an odd sound in the back of her throat, and he quickly looked at her. She had a hand against her mouth and was shaking so hard her teeth chattered. She wasn’t looking at the remains that lay scattered around them, but was staring off into space. Her eyes were wide open and filled with such horror and pain it tore at something deep inside him. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he was sure of one thing: she couldn’t stay in this room.

He swept her up into his arms and raced back down the stairs. She didn’t protest, didn’t say anything at all, her eyes wide and glassy. Sweat sheened her skin, but her flesh was so cold he might have been holding ice.

Once outside, he set her down on a pile of bricks and thrust her head between her knees. “Breathe deep.”

She obeyed. After a few minutes the trembling eased, but she still did not raise her head. He thrust his hands in his pockets and waited. He didn’t know what else to do.

At last she looked up, her cheeks stained with tears. She sniffed, then wiped a hand across her eyes. “It wasn’t—”

“No,” he agreed softly. “It wasn’t.” But it was still a kid up there—a kid who didn’t deserve to die the way he had. “I have to go back up.” Had to check what he thought he’d seen.

She nodded. “I’ll wait here. I don’t need to feel anything else right now.”

Feel? That was an odd word to use. “Will you be all right here?”

A ghostly smile touched her lips, though it failed to lift the fear from her eyes. “Fine. Just don’t be long, because I’ll have to call your people in.”

He nodded and went back. It was no better the second time around. He breathed though his mouth, but the smell still coated the back of his throat, so he swallowed death with every intake of air. He fought nausea and mounting horror as he carefully studied each of the remaining body parts. He hadn’t been mistaken before. Something big had chewed through the bones. Something like a dog.

Or a wolf.

He rose and went back to Kat. She looked no better than she had twenty minutes before. “Did you call the department?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll have to go. I’m supposed to be on leave.”

She didn’t seem surprised. “Take my car.” She handed him the keys. “I need to go to the beach after I finish here, so you can meet me down in Florence, if you like.”

“What do you hope to find at the beach?”

“Cleansing.” She looked past him. “You’d better go. I can hear their sirens.”

So could he, and they were still a distance away. Her hearing was as good as his—and his was moon-enhanced. “How will you get there if I take your car?”

She shrugged, as if it wasn’t important. And maybe it wasn’t. Or maybe she simply intended to hitch a lift from someone.

“Florence is a reasonably big place,” he added, “with lots of ocean frontage. How are you going to find me?”

“I’ll find you, believe me.”

Oddly enough, he did. “Will you be all right?”

She looked at him. Deep in the green depths of her eyes he saw a suffering so profound he had to fight the urge to reach out and comfort her.

“We both have curses we have to live with,” she said softly. “And in many ways, mine is much worse than yours.”

Nothing could be worse than losing your soul to an animal every full moon. “What do you mean?”